Men and women bothered by different types of cheating

MANHATTAN — You've probably heard the saying men are from Mars, women are from Venus. New research from Kansas State University shows this saying even applies to views on cheating.

"There certainly are some individual differences within men and women that need to be studied more, but on average, there is a fundamental difference between men and women and how they view these situations," said Gary Brase, associate professor of psychological sciences.

Brase is the lead author of "Explaining Sex Differences in Reactions to Relationship Infidelities; Comparisons of the Roles of Sex, Gender, Beliefs, Attachment, and Sociosexual Orientation" published in the journal Evolutionary Psychology.

His research found that men and women differ on the types of infidelity that bother them most.

"When you give them a forced choice between the two, men tend to be more upset by sexual infidelity situations than women, and women tend to be more upset by emotional situations," Brase said.

Previous research found the same results about 20 years ago, but researchers hypothesized that factors such as gender-role beliefs, interpersonal trust and attachment style might also play a role. All those factors were included in this survey and there was one overwhelming result.

"Even though we included all these other potential explanations, sex was still the strongest explanation as to why we saw these different forms of jealousy," said Lora Adair, a Kansas State University doctoral candidate in psychological studies who assisted with the research.